Quickest Dodge Shootout w/video

While the main event at last night’s Roadkill Tour event was the Hellcat grudge match between Roadkill and Fast N Loud, there was one big undercard in the form of the Quickest Dodge Shootout.

The racing action began for vehicles of all makes and models at 4 pm, but those early runs were especially important for Dodges, as the quickest six got to battle the guys from Roadkill for the title of the Quick Dodge at the show — and for an entire Hellcat Hemi drive with the Tremec 6-speed manual transmission.

During the first few hours of racing, the quickest Dodge products in the field turned out to be a 2015 Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat, a 1969 Dodge Super Bee, a 2015 Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat, a 1972 Dodge Challenger, a second-generation Dodge Ram 2500, and a 1968 Dodge Dart.

Completing the field were two cars from Roadkill, including a stock Hellcat Challenger driven by David Freiburger and the 2015 Hellcat Charger named General Maintenance. These eight vehicles would go head to head in a single elimination battle to see who would take home the Hellcat Hemi drivetrain, and the action was excellence from beginning to end.

Round 1 began with Freiburger’s Hellcat Challenger falling to the B5 Blue Hellcat Charger, followed by the other Hellcat Challenger in the field falling to the 1970 Dodge Super Bee of Brandon Phillips.

Remember that name, as it becomes more important as the racing continues. The 1972 Challenger couldn’t keep pace with the twin turbo Dodge Ram diesel and the General Maintenance Roadkill car was beaten by the 1968 pro-stock style Dodge Dart.

Round 2 started off with the Super Bee knocking out the Hellcat Charger and when the ’68 Dart ran into mechanical problems early in the run, the twin turbo Cummins Ram took the other spot in the finals.

This set up a final run between the high riding, twin turbo diesel Ram and the bright yellow 440 Six Pack Dodge Super Bee.

After the Ram had made such short work of pretty much every competitor all day, many of the people standing around me in the media area were expecting to see the truck take home the new Hemi.

The Super Bee had been strong all day, but the Ram had been unbeatable. Prior to the run, each driver was interviewed and the Ram driver explained that if he won the Hellcat Hemi, he would be putting it in an S10 that he had at home – giving us all someone to cheer against.

As he had done all day, the Ram driver skipped the burnout and moved to the line as the Super Bee driver did his burnout, quickly hurrying to the starting line. The Ram began to roll coal as the turbos spooled up and the go-lights came on – with the Super Bee hopping out to a quick lead and never looking back.

In the post-race discussion, Phillips explained that his strategy was to get to the line in a hurry and not let the big Ram have the time needed to spool up his turbos. The plan worked, as the Cummins didn’t get out of the hole as well as he had most of the night.

In the end, the Super Bee driven by Brandon Phillips of Sterling Heights, Michigan took the big win and for doing so, he also took home a complete 6.2L supercharged Hellcat Hemi with a 6-speed Tremec manual transmission. He wasn’t sure what he is going to do with the engine, but I think that we can all agree that a Hellcat 1970 Super Bee would be pretty wicked.

Patrick Rall was raised a Mopar boy, spending years racing a Dodge Mirada while working his way through college. After spending a few years post-college in the tax accounting field, Patrick made the jump to the world of journalism and his work has been published in magazines and websites around the world.